South Africa’s passenger railway system is on the brink of total collapse, brought to its knees by thieves and vandals who have gutted many of its stations and railway tracks into a post-apocalyptic-like state.<\/p>\n
Rail journalist David Williams previously detailed the worrying condition of the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa’s (Prasa’s) network in a report<\/strong><\/a> for the Brenthurst Foundation.<\/p>\n Williams found that around two-thirds of the above-ground electrical cable network of 3,000km had been stolen or damaged.<\/p>\n In Gauteng, 89% of the Prasa’s network was out of order, while about 70% of KwaZulu-Natal’s railways were dysfunctional.<\/p>\n The situation was slightly better in the Western Cape, with 30% of the network inoperational.<\/p>\n According to engineers who consulted with Williams on the damage, it could cost around R500,000 to fix every kilometre of the damaged network.<\/p>\n Williams holds that the disbanding of the dedicated railway police unit by the Apartheid government in the late 1980s was one of the first contributors to the decline.<\/p>\n The incumbent government’s decision to split passenger and freight rail in the early 2000s also created significant problems.<\/p>\n Despite sharing rail infrastructure and equipment, the entities that oversee each division \u2014 Prasa and Transnet \u2014 don’t communicate sufficiently, Williams stated.<\/p>\n Both entities have been struggling to deal with thieves stealing cables and tracks.<\/p>\n In November 2021, Transnet Freight Rail said that 1,000km of cables on its network had been stolen in 2021 alone.<\/p>\n Criminals even go so far as to steal railway tracks to sell as scrap metal.<\/p>\n eNCA reporter Nickolaus Bauer previously highlighted a 3km stretch of railway track on the Germiston\u2013Springs line that criminals plundered.<\/p>\n #LootedRailways<\/a> Think the pillaging of our rail infrastructure has stopped?<\/p>\n This 3km stretch near Delmore station on the Germiston to Springs line has been ripped out the ground in the past 3 weeks alone 🧵 pic.twitter.com\/67MLk2QUTV<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Nickolaus Bauer (@NickolausBauer) June 24, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n